


Lights Through a Prism

by fartherfaster



Series: Lights [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen, In Universe, Kid Fic, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 15:04:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1392082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fartherfaster/pseuds/fartherfaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Light will bend when passed through a prism, coming out just a little different on the other side. Five little vignettes of Darcy and Steve's relationship, and the surprising-but-not-at-all roles that Pepper and Tony play therein. </p><p>Set in-universe to "Lights Like an Avalanche" though in a tangential kind of way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lights Through a Prism

**Author's Note:**

> Not actually beta'd, but my beta tells me she enjoys it and encouraged me to share. Can be read as a standalone, though it would make a good deal more sense to read "Lights Like An Avalanche" first. These are just small, potential threads - rays of light refracted through a prism.

**One**

For all that Tony is occasionally obtuse in his interpersonal relationships, he's actually very, very observant. In practice, it means that he's the first one to notice that Darcy is wearing the Cap's dogtags shortly after the incident with the sea monster and he waits, really, he waits for  _three whole days_ but no one is saying anything and he's absolutely certain that even Barton-the-Oblivious has seen this development and  _why won't people just talk about this stuff?_

So, Tony tries to rag on Darcy about her relationship with Cap, but it backfires spectacularly, because all that Steve overhears is Tony’s thin, adolescent jibes and Darcy’s consistent – and evermore frustrated – _Stark, stop it_ so when he gets into the room just as she gives him a very final _TONY_ to his look of unholy glee, Steve loses it. _Temper, temper._

Cause here’s the thing: Tony pushes buttons. On objects, on people… any conceivable kind of trigger is, well, not necessarily _fair_ game, but game enough. He does it like it’s his job and on some days, it kind of is. But nothing, nothing says ‘don’t touch’ like this new, shiny thing that’s happening between Lewis and the American-flavoured Capsicle and Tony just really wants to… poke. Not to do any damage – no one is Hulking-out, thanks – because while Tony may only just tolerate the Defiant Jaw of American Righteousness, he’s okay with admitting that he’s got a soft spot for Lewis and her boozy, sharp humour somewhere in the vicinity of his arc reactor. What can he say? Living vicariously through her keeps him young.

 

**Two**

Pepper has spent eleven minutes too many trying to get an even-slightly-secured line patched through, but her voice relays only first-class urgency, and not her internal, fuming impatience. At least, that is, by the time Cap is the one on the receiving end. He recognises her tone, and feels momentarily sorry for whoever came before him. She gives him no preamble.

“Are you in the continental US, at least?”

“Um,” says Steve. He doesn’t know just how safe this line is – he was just handed a Frankensteined SAT phone – _and yes, he understood that reference –_ in the desert by a harried-looking operative like it might bite him if it were so inclined.

“Are you _not_ in North America, then?”

“Um,” he supplies unhelpfully.

“Fine.” Pepper has learned over the past few months how to deal with these hapless superheroes, and can parse out volumes from the little they tend to give her. Unlike Tony’s verbal floods, where he’ll talk a mile a minute and manage to not actually _say_ anything, Steve, Bruce, and Natasha are his polar opposites. “You can figure out your own transport, then, mister; just get your star-spangled-self back to New York. Darcy is having your baby. Right now.”

And then she hangs up, and Steve’s feeling both jilted and a little panicked and it all just kind of culminates inside him as _Good Lord._

 

**Three**

Darcy will admit, in retrospect, that mildly announcing, “I’m in labour” during a commercial break at eleven thirty at night to a den-full of relaxing Avengers might not have been the best course of action. Maybe. Ish.

Rhodey and Pepper both immediately start to whisper very intensely into multiple cell phones and to one another. Clint, sitting next to her, startles visibly and then very bravely offers her his hand for squeezing. Natasha, she realises, is double-checking her weapons, and Darcy’s train of thought subsequently stutters to a slightly hysterical halt.

“Stark,” Natasha barks, and Darcy comes back online, noticing that Tony is doing that thing where he sits absolutely still and he focuses too-intently on thin air at middle distance. “Go yell at Heimdall.”

“Why do _I_ have to?” he complains belligerently, coming back to life with twitching fingertips and a scowl.

“Because ‘be an eccentric billionaire’ is on your to-do list.”

“I don’t _have_ a to-do list,” he protests, sounding sincerely offended that she thinks he even has things as petty as _obligations_.

“Pepper has one for you,” Bruce adds helpfully, coming towards Darcy at an angle. He’s fished a stethoscope from apparently nowhere and is walking towards her very, very slowly, palms exposed.

Darcy tries to match her breathing with Clint, whom she feels is the only one who’s being remotely helpful; though she realises that’s not a fair judgement. They’re each of them helping. _At least, the best they know how,_ she reasons to herself with some fondness. Breathing through the contraction is short and incredibly distracting, and when her eyes have stopped watering everyone in the room momentarily pauses, and she feels six pairs of eyes on her; six people simultaneously holding their breath.

“How many superheroes does it take to deliver a baby?” she asks gamely, even though the joke falls a little flat.

“Just one,” and then there’s Pepper, politely steam-rolling through the chaos to get to Darcy’s side. “We’re going to Medical, Steve is coming, we’re going to follow your plan to the letter, and we’ll be just fine.” She says this conversationally, as if in Pepper’s life everything always goes to shit in the middle of the night, or something.

Apparently, she said that  out loud, because at her shoulder, helping her to her feet, Clint chokes on a laugh and replies, “Or something.”

 

**Four**

Darcy’s birth plan is followed to the letter, just as promised. Steve arrived, sandy and panicked and with time enough to let his wife crush his hands in the throes of labour. They name him James Joseph Rogers, and he hasn’t been in the world for more than a few days when someone – _dammit, Stark -_  makes an allusion to ‘The Incredibles,’ citing the family photo that’s got everybody in it, and before anyone can blink he’s being called Jack-Jack, like that was the plan all along.

 

**Five**

“Hey,” Tony draws out the syllable, laying the Stark-patented charm on thick. “Hey, you.” His eyes are bright, and he’s a little caffeine-manic, but Darcy and Steve are both… _somewhere,_  well, whatever, not here, and that’s okay with Tony, because he’s babysitting, and despite the world’s notion that he is a raving genius incapable of tying his own socks – because he can, thank you – and he actually really enjoys it.

Jack-Jack is just shy of two years, and he is always happy and more importantly, always happy to be bounced at Tony’s shoulder while the bots buzz around them in the shop and Butterfingers drops everything on purpose just to make him laugh.

The greatest thing about Jack-Jack, Tony decides, is that he can go full-throttle science monologue and not worry about trying to keep his audience up to speed with his helter-skelter thought process. That said, Tony has strong opinions about when Jack-Jack will be ready for school, and which school, and all these other things that he didn’t really anticipate having opinions on, like keeping a corner of the shop baby-safe and maybe, potentially, making kid-sized welding gear. Hypothetically, of course, Tony’s not so uncivilised as to expect a _baby_ to help him tinker with his muscle car collection. He’ll wait until Jack-Jack is, like, five.

“I think,” Tony tells him, gently bouncing as they each pull at pieces from the Holodeck, “I think I’ve had a really fantastic idea. And it’s all about investing. You know, Pepper’s always telling me to pay more attention when she talks about these things, but I’d always just rather be _doing,_ you know? Uncle Tony is a mechanic, not a lawyer.” Tony stops for breath, Butterfingers throws a whole series of circuit boards to the floor with a clatter, and Jack-Jack laughs like this is the height of comedic genius, one hand fisted tightly in the collar of Tony’s ratty Metallica t-shirt.

“So, hear me out, buddy, because this is important for me but it’s so much more important for you, and as your godfather, I feel like I’ve got a certain responsibility here. You know, held accountable, yadda yadda, and don’t ever tell your dad I said that, because he’s Mister Responsible Pants and…” and then Tony fades out for a second, because the joke has been lingering in the air for _two years_ and he somehow hasn’t said it yet.

“Ha!” he snorts, and Jack-Jack laughs because Tony is laughing and Tony just really loves this snotty, drooling, little person-shaped thing. “Your dad’s a Pop-sicle.”

Jack-Jack looks at him with what Tony knows are Darcy’s enormous blue eyes, unblinking and sharply critical and baby-clear. “Fine, whatever. Everyone’s a critic, apparently," Tony dismisses. "Your old man – _ha! I’m hysterical_ – he’s not so great with the pop culture, either. Anyway,” and now Tony spins them around, disco-quick to sit at one of the benches, and the little boy in his arms shrieks in delight. “Here’s the important thing: I think I want to invest, and invest in _you,_ and make you my heir.

“Cause all of this,” and Tony gestures with his free hand to the whole of the shop, and Dummy tracks the motion, fire-extinguisher ever-ready, “has to go to someone. And there’s no one who likes it better down here than you. Bruce and Jane are the only ones, right now, who know how most of this stuff works, but we’ve got time, buddy, you and me, we’ve got time. So, yeah,” he says, as Jack-Jack lays his head on Tony’s collar, and Tony brushes a beardy kiss over his downy head, “I will this to you. You’re heir.”

“Air,” Jack-Jack repeats, concentrated and drowsy.

“Hmm,” Tony replies thoughtfully, “not that kind of air. Pep can explain it to you. She’s really, actually, great at a lot of that stuff. All of that stuff. I hope you find a woman like her. Or a man. Or, you know, whomever. I can give you my company, but you’re on your own for the soul-mate thing.”

“I heard that.”

“Pep!” Tony quietly exclaims, spinning on his stool. “Pepper, light of my life. After the reactor. Before it,” he amends quickly, all while she watches with a patient, bemused smile. Then he asks more softly, “Do you think that’s okay?”

“Making James heir?” Pepper, curiously, always calls the baby James and never Jack-Jack, but everyone forgives her because of her own tenuous-at-best history with nicknames. She’s got a warm, slightly clouded expression on her face, and it’s the first time in this whole thought process that Tony’s having second feelings. Pepper has been in his life for nearly fifteen years – he has catalogued all of her expressions and tones of voice, and sometimes likes to go fishing for certain ones in particular, but this is the very, very first time he’s seen this one and it makes him slightly nervous. Jack-Jack picks up on his tension and starts to squirm.

Pepper, the balm that she is, holds one hand out for the baby, and he takes it immediately. He’s got a thing for expensive watches that no one has really been able to source. “Well,” she says, and Tony’s tension ebbs because he knows that voice and it’s a safe, teasing, _I know you’re a genius but we both know I’m better_ tone, “I think he could certainly be an heir.”

There’s a lilt, an emphasis, a _something_ in her voice, and this is why Tony likes machines better than people because people go and do _this_ and be confusing and manipulative and it’s okay when it’s Pepper because he really, really loves Pepper, and he knows how to play the game, too; Tony knows how to be a manipulative asshole, he just doesn’t like it; in retrospect he feels like he was shaped that way by everyone else, metal warped under strain until the new shape became the only shape.

“An heir,” he repeats, trying to parse out her secret meaning. “An heir.”

“Air,” Jack-Jack repeats.

“An heir,” Pepper agrees, “as in, one of more than one.”

“Oh,” says Tony, without comprehension. Then, “ _Oh,_ ” says Tony, with comprehension. “ _Oh._ Oh, Pepper. Pep.” He swallows thickly. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I am,” she smiles, coy and a little nervous and Tony suddenly wishes he’d built a bot with two arms to take the baby from him. The baby, _a baby, holy shit._

“Oh,” says Tony again, sitting down heavily. There are a lot of questions burning through his mind, and all he really wants is to hold on to her. “C’mere,” he says, and Pepper steps eagerly into his waiting embrace. Jack-Jack, only slightly squashed, babbles happily between them.


End file.
